Timeline for new Cape Fear crossing pushed back

Published: Monday, May 13, 2013 at 5:31 p.m.

Last Modified: Monday, May 13, 2013 at 5:31 p.m.

The timeline for another crossing of the Cape Fear River has been pushed back again.

At a meeting Monday of the Cape Fear Crossing Work Group, consultants from URS Corp. said a draft of the environmental impact study will be completed in spring 2016, and a final study will be approved in the summer of 2017.

At a meeting in November, DOT representatives said the draft could be finished as soon as 2014, with the study being finalized as soon as 2015.

“From a citizen’s and a public official’s standpoint, this project has been put off and put off and put off.... I just don’t understand how we keep getting different projected dates,” said Laura Padgett, a Wilmington city councilwoman and member of the work group.

The group includes local elected officials who also sit on the Transportation Advisory Committee, representatives from the N.C. Department of Transportation and consultants who are working on the project.

The current timeline is the most accurate so far, according to the DOT, as they’re beginning to get a better feel for exactly what the project will entail.

“We’ll continue to try to compress the overall schedule, but now that we know how many acres we need to delineate and things we need to take into consideration, that’s what they came up with when they put it into the scheduling software,” said Jennifer Harris, head of the DOT’s turnpike project development section.

“It’s always easy to be surprised positively than to have to go back to your constituents and explain why this isn’t going to happen,” he said.

Landowners near the possible crossing sites already identified – just south of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge and near Independence Boulevard – will receive letters in coming weeks letting them know consultants will be doing surveys in the area. Consultants stressed that the surveys are being used to determine where a structure could go and that no final decision has been reached.

“We just really want to emphasize that if landowners see us out there, it doesn’t mean the bridge is going to be there,” said David Griffin, a senior transportation engineer with URS.

URS representatives also said they want to sit down with David Hollis, Leland’s town manager, to make sure they’re on the same page about the town’s proposed route from Independence Boulevard across the Cape Fear to a point just south of Town Creek, then heading west to the intersection of U.S. 17 and N.C. 87 at Bell Swamp. If the route passes initial consideration, though, it could mean the impact studies take even longer, depending on how much manpower is available to consultants.